Located in the heart of Paris, Virtuel Audio is a three-studio facility that specialises in audio post production for the television and advertising markets. Its clients include many of the country’s top broadcasters and advertising agencies, such as France TV Group, Canal+ and several private production companies.

Already regarded as one of the most technically advanced facilities in Paris, Virtuel Audio has now added to its kudos by installing an award-winning Fairlight Xynergi Media Production Centre with a 12-fader sidecar, driven by the company’s powerful CC-1 Crystal Core digital media engine.

Virtuel Audio’s sound engineer Laurent Herniaux says speed and flexibility were the main reasons why the facility decided to upgrade its Studio One.

“We have been using Fairlight equipment for some years and have only praise for the reliability and effectiveness of the company’s products,” he explains. “Prior to this upgrade our studios had MFX3 and MFX3.48 running on QDC and we also have PyxisTrack video and MediaLink which enables us to network all studios. The decision to install a Xynergi and move to the CC-1 platform was taken for purely commercial reasons: we wanted to improve our workflow and increase efficiency. Xynergi offers a much faster editing and mixing interface and its ability to handle all widely used surround formats means that we are in a much better position to deal with whatever file format our clients come in with.”

Fairlight’s French Business Partner EuroMedia Technologies took charge of the upgrade, which will also soon include the installation of an AV-T 3.0 CCE (Crystal Core edition). This is a new tool developed by EuroMedia Technologies and supported by Fairlight that allows facilities to automate their entire production workflow.

Denis Derigent, managing director of EuroMedia Technologies, says: “The combination of Xynergi and CC-1 is the perfect choice for any facility with an intense workload. Virtuel Audio primarily deals with television talk shows and magazine programmes that require very fast turnaround. From a client point of view, any piece of equipment that speeds up the editing and mixing process is welcome – and that is exactly what Xynergi does.”

Although Virtuel Audio’s new Xynergi system has only been installed for a few weeks, Laurent Herinaux says he is already noticing an improvement in workflow.

“It’s such an easy system to use and the more we learn about it, the faster we become,” he says. “The user interface has been very well thought-out and I really like being able to access commonly used Windows applications such as Email, Word and Excel, as well as tapping into all the features and functions of the CC-1.”

Virtuel Audio is now planning to upgrade its second studio to incorporate Fairight’s new CC-1 technology. This will give the facility even more flexibility and is a development that all of the engineers at Virtuel Audio are looking forward to.